(Alliance News) - Ted Baker PLC will pay no dividend after its annual loss widened in a year when coronavirus restrictions shut its shops for long periods, but the London-based luxury retailer said it continued to make progress on its strategic turnaround plan.
Revenue for its 53-week financial year that ended January 30 was GBP352 million, down 44% from GBP630.5 million in the 52-week year prior. Pretax loss widened to GBP107.7 million from from a restated GBP77.6 million.
The retailer said that, given current trading conditions and the high level of uncertainty about the future, the board has decided that no final dividend will be paid, having paid out 40.7 pence last year. In the long term, "we remain committed to paying dividends and returning surplus cash to our shareholders," Ted Baker said.
Shares were up 1.4% at 168.70p each in London on Monday morning.
Ted Baker is in the first year of a three-year strategic transformation programme it has dubbed 'Ted's Growth Formula', and said progress made so far has been "encouraging".
Chief Executive Officer Rachel Osborne said: "We are making good progress against our strategic transformation plan, and Ted Baker is increasingly well placed to take advantage of the significant growth opportunities ahead of us. The Ted Baker brand has strengthened further, with the number of active customers growing to 1.2 million by the end of the year.
"While the impact of Covid-19 is clear in our results and has amplified some of the legacy issues impacting the business, Ted Baker has responded proactively and is in a much stronger place than it was a year ago. During the period, we delivered robust cashflow generation, fixed our balance sheet, refreshed our senior leadership team, and today we are upgrading our financial targets for the second time since outlining our new strategy last summer."
Osborne, a former finance director of Debenhams Retail Ltd and Domino's Pizza Group PLC, was brought into Ted Baker at the end of 2019 as chief financial officer and then CEO, after a series of profit warnings and a misconduct scandal which claimed the head of founder Ray Kelvin.
For its 2022 financial year, Ted Baker said first quarter trading had been "materially impacted" by Covid restrictions, with lockdowns in place in the UK, continental Europe and Canada.
First quarter revenue was down 20%, with retail store revenue plummeting 41% from a year prior. However eCommerce revenue saw a mild improvement, up 4.5% year-on-year, as the group starts to take a less-heavy promotional stance compared to the prior year.
In announcing operational targets for the new financial year, Ted Baker highlighted digital growth as an area of focus as it aims to reduce its reliance on physical store sales.
By Will Paige; willpaige@alliancenews.com
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